YOU could buy four houses in Longford for the price of one in Dublin, and still have change left over.

And a buyer could snap up three homes in Cavan for the price of one in the capital and have enough money left over to furnish them.

A new database of property transactions shows Longford recorded the lowest selling prices for houses last year, with an average of just €79,000.

This compared with Dublin where the average selling price was €356,000, an analysis of the market shows.

There were just 43,428 residential property transactions last year from a total stock of over two million properties, according to the An Post GeoDirectory database.

This equates to a national turnover rate of 2.2pc. This is half of what is considered normal for a functioning property market.

The low transaction rate reflects the current shortage of property on the market and tough lending rules imposed last February by the Central Bank.

Of the total transactions recorded last year, only 13pc represented new properties, while 87pc were second-hand property transactions.

Using the GeoDirectory, Central Statistics Office population figures and taking in figures from the Property Price Register, it emerged that Dublin had the highest average transaction price.

This was followed by Wicklow, where the average selling price was €296,000, and Kildare at €245,000.

The average transaction price nationally was €225,000.

Dublin and Kildare experienced the greatest turnover in housing stock, at 2.6pc of the residential stock of each county.

A total of 3,957 residential buildings were classified as being under construction in the GeoDirectory Database in the fourth quarter of last year.

Demand for housing is strongest in Dublin, but new housing represented just 16.9pc of all buildings under construction in the State.

Building activity was very muted in Roscommon and Leitrim where fewer than 40 buildings were under construction in each county.

Kildare witnessed a sharp increase in the number of buildings under construction, up to 253 buildings final quarter from 19 the previous year.

This might be down to a larger number of people being pushed to move outside the capital by rising house prices, the report said.

Dublin had the highest residential density per square kilometre by a large margin.

The next highest ranked county, Louth, had a substantially lower density. Leitrim and Mayo had the lowest residential densities.

Chief executive of GeoDirectory Dara Keogh said: "We've seen a consistent picture over the last two - three years, with demand outstripping supply in the more urban areas, while the market remains sluggish in large parts of rural Ireland."

Annette Hughes, director of DKM Economic Consultants, who worked on the report, said the national average housing turnover rate in the year to December 2015 stood at 2.2pc.

"This rate is showing very few signs of improving and is still well below what would be deemed to be a more normal housing turnover rate of around 4pc to 5pc," she said.

GeoDirectory is an address database of homes, jointly set up by An Post and Ordnance Survey Ireland.